Monday, January 11, 2010

After almost 5 years and 1,112 posts, I've decided to put The BDR on indefinite hiatus.

It's been a great ride. I've enjoyed almost every minute of it. But the joy of discovering and sharing has, over the past few months, become the tedium of finding and posting. So it's time to stop. I might resurrect The BDR if it feels right, or I might blog about something else. It's too early to tell.

2009 was a wonderful year, and I can't thank you enough for showing up: a third of a million visits from 190 countries yielded just shy of 640,000 page views. 3 of those visits came from Nuuk, Greenland. Thank you, Nuuk :-)

Tuesday, January 05, 2010

(I'm on vacation this week, so posting will be limited. But I thought it might be fun to re-publish a favorite post and ask again: what book do you really hate?)

OK, enough of looking at book covers for a day or two. The Guardian's Stuart Evers has written a very, very funny article about "the good side of bad books." It's a hoot, and you should read it now.

But then you should come back here and tell us about the one (or two) novels that made you want to set yourself on fire, punch yourself in the face, or question why you learned to read in the first place.

I'll go first. After being hounded by my sci-fi-inclined friends for years, I read Robert Heinlein's Stranger In A Strange Land. When done, I immediately went out and bought two hamsters and a cage so that something could rip that book apart and pee on it. If there was an editor within 50 miles of that thing, I'll eat my shorts. I'll eat yours too.

I'm not anti-science fiction. I don't read a whole bunch of it, but I don't have a problem with it per se. J.G. Ballard holds a special place on my bookshelves. But this book? Ugh. I wish I remembered more about why I hated it so deeply, but I do trust my memory of discomfort and loathing.

"Our assignment was to pick 15 covers and comment on them if we wished. We think the covers speak for themselves, so instead of talking about them, we want to mention what we think was the most amazing piece of book design of the year. As much as we'd like to choose Chip Kidd's design of The Original of Laura, which we loved, or any of the designs done by Chris Ware, Oak Park's very own genius, we think the design of The Hemingses of Monticello is the best design of the year.

We know that most books that we sell in the store are sold because of their spine and we know that of the thousands of books in our home, only a few at anytime have their covers displayed. Because of this, we spend a lot of time thinking about spines. The Hemingses of Monticello is the first book that we ever remember seeing that has award medals on the spine. It's a brilliant idea and makes it irresistible to everyone that goes near it."

Sunday, December 13, 2009

The third and final list of favorite covers from independent booksellers, in this case, hometown favorite The Book Table in Oak Park, Illinois. They've chosen some wonderful covers from small, university and foreign publishers, so help me out with the credits if you can. In most cases, the titles are linked to The Book Table's online store, in case you're in a shopping mood.

Again, as in past weeks, there's a poll at the bottom. Vote for your favorite.

Let the Great World Spin; design by Robbin Schiff & Anna Bauer, drawing by Matteo Pericoli (full wrap over here): "The delicately drawn city cuts a slice in the cover, much like the beautiful slivers of lives inside the book."

The Death of Bunny Munro, design by Charlotte Strick: "An evil bratty bunny! In no way does this indicate that it will garner a "Bad Sex in a Book" nomination."

Animals and Objects In and Out of Water, illustration by Jay Ryan: "Are they animals? Or are they stuffed animals come to life? Are they sweet, or evil, or both??"

Yummy, illustration by Lucy Cousins: "Incredibly kinetic, this cover let's you know it's not going to be fairy tale business as usual."

Pictorial Webster's, design by John Carrera:

The Great Perhaps, design by Jamie Keenan:

The Housekeeper and the Professor, design by Henry Sene Yee (full wrap here):

The Gone-Away Word, design by Evan Gaffney (full wrap here): "Equally as awesome as the fuzzy pink and green hardcover, this zooming orange design perfectly sums up the ride you're taken on."

Chronic City, design by Rodrigo Corral:

Beat the Reaper, design by Ploy Siripant:

The Bedside Book of Beasts, design by CS Richardson:

The Anthologist, design by Jason J. Heuer: "Simple, elegant, and the plum is actually referred to in the story."

Monday, November 30, 2009

As announced a few weeks ago, I've asked three independent bookstores to contribute to this year's Favorite Covers of 2009 coverage. Here are the selections from the staff of WORD in Brooklyn, NY. Three more lists (including my selections) are on the way.

The only guideline I asked the good folks at WORD to follow was to limit their selections to books published this year, so I was glad to see them include some YA and children's books -- I don't get around to discussing either genre very often.

I couldn't chase down all the design credits, so if you know something I don't, please set me on the right track so that I can give proper credit for this fantastic work. And of course correct me if I've gotten something wrong.

There's a poll at the bottom of the post: vote for your favorite. The top three vote-getting designs from this list will eventually join the other favorites from the upcoming lists in a final poll.

Lastly: each title is linked to WORD's online store. Something tickling your fancy? Support indie bookstores and buy from them.

WORD's favorite covers of the year, in no particular order, are:

Wuthering Heights, design by Ruben Toledo: "This is our favorite of the three covers Toledo did for Penguin Classics Deluxe Editions."

The Sickness Unto Death, design by David Pearson: "This is really a shout-out to the entire line-up of the newest installment of the Penguin Great Ideas series, though this is probably our favorite cover of the bunch. These are some of the most irresistible book covers I have ever seen. They're all embossed. Almost everyone who looks at them touches them and then moans ecstatically."

Seven Nights, design by Rodrigo Corral: "Love this so much that I continually re-display it just to look at it."

Pure, design by Cara Petrus: "a teen novel about purity rings and the girls who wear them (and a girl who breaks her pledge). "

The Book of Fathers: design by John Gall, collage by Nicole Natri: "The men and the arms on the cover are raised. It's possible we just like this because it looks like the art of a former employee. Didn't love it at first, but it has really grown on us since it came in, to the point that now we love it."

Che's Afterlife: The Legacy of an Image; design by Mark Abrams, cover image by Jim Fitzpatrick, original photo by Alberto Korda: "There could be no better cover for a book about history's most reproduced image."

The Children's Book, design by Stephen Parker, "adapted by Gabrielle Wilson" (per the jacket): "A beautiful cover that only gets more beautiful after you've read the book."

The City Out My Window: "The only die-cut we will ever like in this store (we hate die cuts because they inevitably rip on the floor, no matter what you do with them, and then nobody wants to buy them). But this one is thick cardboard, and obviously a perfect choice of a book of window pictures."